What Are Your Chances Of Getting In

For two years, she taught fifth graders as a Teach for America teacher and now works for a small educational non-profit as a program coordinator. With a 710 GMAT and a 3.7 GPA, this 24-year-old woman hopes that an MBA would allow her to transition to a prestige consulting shop to help organizations in the social sector

He’s a first generation college grad who currently works in a business development and strategy role for a large oil and gas company. With a 3.98 grade point average and a 740 GMAT, this 27-year-old professional is hoping to use an MBA degree to transition back into real estate development, a field he worked in before the industry tanked in 2008.

This 24-year-old female CPA works for a Big Four accounting firm and expresses a passion for helping companies improve their financial reporting for the purpose of maintaining the integrity of the capital markets. A first generation college grad, this Hispanic professional wants an MBA to move into the professional services arena.

Sandy Kreisberg, founder of HBSGuru.com

What these applicants share in common is the goal to get into one of the world’s best business schools. Do they have the raw stats and experience to get in? Or will they get dinged by their dream schools?

Sanford “Sandy” Kreisberg, founder of MBA admissions consulting firm HBSGuru.com, is back again to analyze these and a few other profiles of actual MBA applicants who have shared their vital statistics with Poets&Quants.

As usual, Kreisberg handicaps each potential applicant’s odds of getting into a top-ranked business school. If you include your own stats and characteristics in the comments, we’ll pick a few more and have Kreisberg assess your chances in a follow-up feature to be published shortly. (Please add your age and be clear on the sequence of your jobs in relaying work experience. Make sure you let us know your current job.)

Sandy’s candid assessments:

Mr. Captain

700 GMAT

3.03 GPA (2.5 GPA in freshman year/3.6 and 3.4 in senior year)

Undergraduate degree in operations research from a service academy

Work experience includes serving as a captain in the military with 140 “outside-the-wire” drive missions in Afghanistan escorting personnel; currently deployed to run the largest volunteer organization in Afghanistan with 500 active members who help to donate clothes, shoes and school supplies to local Afghans

Extracurricular involvement includes lots of community service; volunteer for Special Olympics State Games, coach for Special Olympics bowling team, led and managed school’s intramural program for 4,000 students; football player; do triathlons and ultra-marathons, a member of military service cycling team

26-year-old

Odds of Success:

Harvard: 30% to 35%
Stanford: 10%
Wharton: 30% to 35%
MIT: 30%

Sandy’s Analysis: Captain, I like you, but let’s start with the bad news.

A 3.03 GPA and 700 GMAT is a passable combination at many business schools, especially given the upward trend in your grades (2.5’s freshman year/3.6 and 3.4 senior year) but H/S/W and MIT get lots of military apps, and they don’t quite know how to “read” a military career. You do seem to have an extraordinary number of extracurricular and leadership extracurricular engagements, including leading the school’s intramural program with ~4,000 kids, lots of work with Special Olympics, and now running “the largest volunteer organization in Afghanistan with 500 active volunteers donating clothes/shoes/school supplies to local Afghans.”

I’m impressed and a place like HBS could be too, if you get lucky. They would be the first of the H/W/S trio to bend on the low-ish stats. Your 700 GMAT is the OK threshold (as per adcom head HRH Dee Leopold) for “charity” cases. My guess is, and I will be happy to be corrected, service academy dudes at Stanford and Wharton have higher stats. If you got in there, you would be in the bottom 30 percent stats-wise, so you are asking your extras to do a lot. MIT is pro-military but they are not really impressed with extracurrics, so low-ish stats could be an issue there as well.

You have an impressive set of accomplishments, and most readers, me included, will be impressed. On two occasions, you have emerged to lead large organizations (aside from being in the military to begin with). That is what those schools claim to want, but they often seem more impressed with 30 more points on an insipid GMAT exam. Let’s see. At HBS you could benefit from some recommendations which highlight those aspects of your career.